Little Known Black History Fact: Schomburg’s First Black Comic Book Festival

This upcoming Saturday, the Schomburg Center for Research of Black Culture will host its first Black Comic Book Festival. Located in Harlem, New York, the Schomburg Center holds artifacts, recordings, paintings and other pieces of black history.

Among the events of the festival will be a screening of “White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic Books.” (See video below.) There is also a presentation called “The Black Kirby” which will honor comic book artist John Kirby. Kirby, who is white, co-developed the Black Panther character with animation genius Stan Lee in 1966. The two men developed the Fantastic Four, which included the first black superhero, the Black Panther, and his African nation of Wakanda.

The festival is presented by the Schomburg Junior Scholars and by Jonathan Gayles, PhD.

In Philadelphia each May is The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention, formerly the Pan-African Comic Convention (PAC-Con). Formed in 2002, the non-profit event has been credited as the “Black Comic Book Convention.”

Click here for more information on the Schomburg Center for Research of Black Black Culture and the Black Comic Book Festival.

The Black Comic Book Festival is this Saturday, January 12th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Harlem.